Their Darkest Hour (35 page)

He stood up and advanced towards Alex, rubbing his hands together.  “You’re been a very naughty girl,” he said, mockingly.  “The government surrendered – and you kept the war going all on your own.”  His mouth, what little she could see of it, leered.  “But now the war is over and you’re a prisoner.  No one even knows where you are.”

Alex braced herself, remembering the dreaded Conduct After Capture course they’d been put through during training.  The Geneva Conventions had become a joke after the end of the Cold War and the MOD had – reluctantly – admitted that British personnel
would
be tortured and forced to talk by their captors.  They'd been given guidelines, but the decision on how much to say and cooperate had been left with the captured personnel.  Alex remembered seeing captured personnel broadcasting from Iran and shuddered.  At least a personnel broadcast from her wouldn't have any effect on the rest of the resistance.  She barely knew
anything
that could be used against anyone else.

“Cooperate with us now and you will be well-treated,” the interrogator said.  She could feel his breath on her ear.  “We have good food and you can rest.  You did your duty – now it’s over.  You can relax.”

His finger reached out and traced her chin, gently pulling her head up so she was staring into his eyes.  “It's over,” he said, gently.  “Who else was involved with your resistance cell?”

Alex looked down and shook her head.  “Come on,” he said, gently.  “There’s really nothing to be gained by further resistance.  We
are
going to get it out of you, one way or the other.  Why not make it easier upon yourself?”

He stepped back and reached for a small tray lying on his desk.  When he stepped back into view, he was holding a small bar of chocolate in his hand.  “You know, you used to be able to get as much chocolate as you wanted for a few pounds,” he said.  “Now...now you can’t get chocolate at all, unless you have
connections
.”  He spoke the last word with another leer as he opened the packet.  “Wouldn't you like some chocolate?”

Alex recoiled as he held a piece out under her nose.  After a few days in the detention camp, part of her wanted the chocolate – and part of her refused to take anything from her interrogator.  He held it closer, just above her mouth, waiting to see what she would say.  Her mouth was watering, but she shook her head.  Perhaps he was right, perhaps it was hopeless, yet she wasn’t going to break so easily.  She swore to herself that she wouldn't break at all.

“You seem to believe that you can remain silent,” the interrogator said.  He popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth and ate it with evident enjoyment.  “But believe me, you will talk.”

Without warning, he slapped her across the cheek.  Alex gasped in pain, feeling blood trickling down the side of her face.  Her entire face hurt.  He leaned closer and pushed his face against hers, almost as if he intended to kiss her.  When he spoke, his voice was a dull whisper.

“You will talk,” he said.  “We have all the time in the world to break your resistance.  You will be broken apart and then you will tell us everything we want to know.  Do you understand me?  Resistance is futile.”

He slapped her again.  Alex felt an unholy ringing in her head, which faded slowly.  She hadn't had anything like enough to eat over the past few days.  Chances were they’d held her long enough for hunger to set in and weaken her resistance.  Her lips felt bloody and broken after the two slaps.  The strap around her chest seemed to be contracting, squeezing the breath out of her.  It was all she could do to remain aware and alert.

A glint of light caught her eye and she froze as the interrogator advanced towards her with a knife.  He was going to cut her throat...for a moment, she was gripped with absolute terror, just before realising that they would hardly let her go that easily.  She felt a tug as he pulled at what remained of her shirt, slicing it away from her bare skin.  Her bra followed, leaving her breasts exposed to their gaze.  She cringed back as he pinched her nipple, before turning his attention to her trousers.  When he had finished, she was naked and exposed – and helpless.  No amount of struggling would break the tie they’d put around her chest.

“Do you understand me?”  The interrogator whispered.  “You will talk, one way or the other.  Talk now and we won’t have to hurt you any longer...”

Alex tried to lose herself in thought.  Where had the interrogator come from?  She knew that some policemen were collaborating, but surely they would draw the line at such an interrogation...  But the aliens had presumably taken the prisons as well.  They’d have plenty of volunteers for an interrogation crew if they broke open the cells containing violent offenders.  Some of the stories she’d read in the newspapers over the years had been horrific, like the brother who had casually tortured his own sister to death.  He’d been jailed for a very long time – but had the aliens freed him and put him to work?

They didn’t seem to enjoy making people suffer themselves.  The aliens stamped hard on resistance, and they were indiscriminate when it came to applying heavy weapons, but they didn't have the sadistic urges that many human despots had indulged.  But if they’d found humans who did enjoy making people suffer...the thought was sickening.  If someone had suggested it to the aliens...

A hand grabbed her breast and squeezed, hard.  Another reached down and clawed between her legs.  Alex screamed for the first time, trying to bring her leg up to kick out at her tormentor.  He slapped it down and then yanked at her breast.  Alex felt her mind start to blur as he slapped her time and time again, the pain threatening to drag her down into the darkness.  She’d lost track of time.  How long had she been tortured...she heard a hiss and opened her eyes, in time to see a single jet of blue fire right in front of her eyes.

“You won’t be such a pretty face when I’m through with you,” her interrogator whispered.  There was no doubt at all that he was enjoying himself.  Alex cringed back as the heat came closer and closer to her face, only to be pulled away just before it started to burn her skin.  “Do you know how many women I’ve beaten and broken here?  How many are nothing more than my slaves, dependent upon me for everything?”

Alex tried to speak, but it was so hard to concentrate.  She wanted to give in, and yet some stubborn part of her nature refused to surrender.  The pain was growing; she was suddenly aware that he’d freed her from the chair, only to roll her over so she was bent over the chair, her buttocks lifted up for his inspection.  Something sent a wave of pain over her rear and she screamed again, feeling a desperate desire to be sick that sent a tidal wave of vomit out of her mouth.  Everything she’d eaten in the camp, as mushy and tasteless as it had been, seemed to be spilling out of her.

She felt his hands on her rear, spreading her thighs.  And then she felt him pressing his hardness into her...the pain and humiliation overwhelmed her, sending her crashing down into darkness.  Her last thought, shining out against the blackness, was that she’d told them nothing...

***

“Are you all right?”

Alex opened her eyes slowly, unsure of what had happened to her.  She found herself in a small cell, staring up at a naked girl.  The bruises on her skin told their own story.  Every single piece of Alex’s body
hurt
in ways she would have thought unimaginable.  It hurt to try to open her mouth and speak.  The pain around her breasts was horrific.

“Remain still,” the girl urged.  “He’s cut you, the bastard.  I don’t know if you’ll recover...”

Somehow, despite the pain, Alex managed to pull herself up into a sitting position – and instantly regretted it.  Her buttocks felt as if they were on fire.  Carefully, she inspected herself and saw red marks and cuts covering her skin.  Some of them looked to have broken the skin, only to be allowed to heal on their own, without interference.  She glanced around the dirty cell and realised that there was a good chance that one or more of the scars would become infected.  And then...she doubted that they’d give her any medical treatment.  Maybe the infection would finish her off quickly.

“What...?”  She managed to say.  Her mouth still hurt, even when she touched it.  They’d slapped her, she recalled.  Maybe they’d knocked out a tooth or two.  Or maybe...hadn’t she read a book, once, where the hero had had his teeth removed to make him talk?  She didn’t seem to be missing any teeth, but her mouth hurt too much for her to be sure.  “What happened to me?”

“They dumped you in here,” the girl said.  “I don’t think you told him anything.  He was proper raging when he left you here and told me to take care of you.  I think he’s probably afraid that the Leathernecks will be angry with him for failing to get anything out of you.”

“Good,” Alex managed, finally.  Maybe they’d send him to be interrogated instead.  A taste of his own medicine would teach him a lesson.  “Where...where did they get you?”

The girl hesitated, and then shrugged.  “My brother was killed by the bastards and I was taken away,” she said.  “When I woke up, I was here – at his mercy.  You...you don’t know what they’ve done to me...”

“I think I can guess,” Alex said.  The bastard had raped her, just as he’d raped Alex.  Part of her wanted to crawl into a corner and die, but the rest of her wanted revenge.  There would be a chance to kill the bastard and she intended to take it.  It was the only thing left to her.  “Do you have more water?  Something to wash?”

“There’s a shower over there, but the water’s always cold,” the girl said.  Alex pulled herself to her feet, despite the pain, and staggered towards the little chamber.  “They do it on purpose, the bastards.”

“Probably,” Alex agreed.  Her body was stained with blood – and his seed.  She wanted to be clean again, even though she felt as if she would never be clean.  “But we will get them, one day.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Near Alien Detention Camp

United Kingdom, Day 40

“Jimmy!”

Jimmy Coates scowled as he heard his wife calling his name.  What did the dumb bitch want now?  It was bad enough that she picked a fight with him about each and every little thing, but she wouldn't allow him to respond to her stupid arguments.  So what if he drank too much and came rolling home drunk?  She’d come rolling home drunk if she saw half the shit he had to see, as well as the looks people gave a collaborator when they thought one of the aliens wasn't watching.  And who cared if the fucking cooking club bitches had voted to throw Ginny out on her arse?  Just because they didn't want a collaborator’s wife...

“What?”  He demanded, furiously.  There were times when he thought that going to the whorehouses would be a good way to punish a shrewish spouse.  It wasn't as if there was a shortage of whores these days.  Pussy was cheap when so many were starving, kept alive by the mush the aliens doled out every week to those who bent the knee to them.  “What’s so fucking important that you have to drag me out of the bathroom?”

“They’re saying there’s going to be a national announcement in twenty minutes,” his wife shouted back.  God – what had he been thinking when he married her?  She’d trapped him, all right; she’d told him that she was on the pill.  But she’d gotten pregnant and her father had insisted that he marry her, or else.  Jimmy still remembered the moment when he’d realised that he’d been trapped, forced into a marriage to a girl he didn't love.  And even though they’d had three brats together, he still didn’t love her.  “You have to watch it too.”

Jimmy snorted, but didn't argue any further.  The BBC was wholly controlled by the aliens these days and they used it to make sure that their subjects heard announcements that might otherwise be missed.  When they weren’t issuing orders, they were showing old soap operas and movies, rather than anything else.  The once-famed BBC news service had terminated two days after the aliens landed, never to be replaced.  It seemed that the aliens believed that humans were only to know what they needed to know, rather than have news from all over the world pumped into their living rooms.  Jimmy was almost relieved.  His wife and her cooking group had held sales for every lost cause across the world, apart from Britain itself.  No one was allowed to mention how Britain had problems...

He stumbled down the stairs, cursing the five pints of beer he’d downed after leaving work earlier, and crashed into the living room.  She’d decorated it, of course, with all of her frilly decorations, rather than the beer table and fridge he would have preferred.  Surely a man could design at least one room in his house.  But no, it was all her own work – and it had cost him a pretty penny too!  He sat down in the armchair and pretended not to see his wife’s lips thinning with disapproval.  So what if he was half-drunk?  It wasn't as if he wasn’t providing for her, was it?  She still got half of his salary – real alien money – and there were goods in the shops for those who had alien money.  They ate better than all of their neighbours.